DevOps integration with Multi-Cloud Service Management

The development teams and IT operations teams of most organizations use different tools to manage and track their efforts. This disparity in tools presents a challenge to implementing DevOps practices across an organization. BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management aims at addressing the challenge of integrating tools used by the IT operations teams and those used by development teams.

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management helps integrate Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) with development tracking tools such as Atlassian Jira or CA Agile Central:

• When a developer creates an issue in an issue tracking system such as Jira, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management creates a corresponding change request or incident in Remedy ITSM based on the conditions you specify, that can be viewed in the Remedy with (Smart IT) console. The Smart IT console displays the issue ticket ID as a link that opens the ticket in the issue tracking system.
• Similarly, when a change coordinator creates a change request in Remedy ITSM, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management creates a corresponding user story in the Agile tool. The development team can view details of the change request from the Agile tool.
• BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management facilitates integration of Remedy ITSM with more than one instance of Jira. BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management supports the full functionality for all the instances of Jira in your organization. See Use cases for more information about using multiple Jira instances.

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management features for DevOps implementation

Configuring BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management for DevOps integration, enables the following functionality:

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management without Smart IT

You can integrate BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management with development tracking tools without using Smart IT. Instead of the Smart IT console, you can use BMC Remedy Mid Tier, to view change requests and incidents. While you cannot view  the vendor ticket details, you can view the work logs to verify that tickets are being brokered.

When working without Smart IT, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management supports all available features except the following:

• Ability to associate multiple issues (for example, Jira issues) with a single Remedy ITSM change request.

• Sending an activity note from Remedy ITSM to the issue tracking system.

DevOps integration with multiple Jira instances

When integrating with multiple Jira instances:

• 
  
  • There is no limit on the number of Jira instances that a BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management tenant can support.
  • A Remedy ITSM tickets from multiple Jira instances cannot be combined onto same Remedy ticket. 
  • You can specify a unique name for each Jira instance for easy identification.
  • You have the flexibility to define different field mappings and trigger conditions for your Jira instances

Ticket brokering with BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management

BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to create vendor (AWS/Salesforce) tickets.

Connector: A connector is an integration (connection point) with a BMC or a third-party application. Connectors are configured in BMC Integration Service.

Flow: A flow is a connection between two connectors that lets you accomplish a certain task. A triggering event in the source application causes an action to take place in the target application. Flows are configured in BMC Integration Service.

Process: A process uses rules and actions to implement the business logic for a given business use case. Processes are configured in Innovation Studio.

The out-of-the-box configuration requires minimal changes for most scenarios. As an administrator, you can customize the configuration based on your organization's requirements.

How change requests and incidents are created automatically

The following diagram illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, and processes to automatically create a change request or an incident in Remedy ITSM.

How multiple issues are associated with a change request

Service desk users can associate and view multiple issues in a single Remedy ITSM change request. You need to copy the Remedy ITSM request ID to the Jira issue as a label. When working with multiple instances of Jira, change requests can be associated only with issues from a single instance.

The following diagram illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, rules, and processes when multiple issues are associated with an existing ITSM change request:

How issues are created automatically

When a service desk agent creates an incident or a change request, BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management automatically creates an issue in an issue tracking tool like Jira.

A user story is created for incidents with the following values:

• Status: Resolved
• Status reason: Future enhancement
• Resolution category: Request > Jira > story/issue

An issue is created for incidents with the following values:

• Status: Resolved
• Status reason: Future enhancement
• Resolution category: Request > Jira > bug

The following diagram illustrates how BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management uses connectors, flows, rules, and processes to create an issue or a user story.

How activity notes and status are updated in BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Service Management

• When a service desk agent adds a comment to the Remedy ITSM change request or incident (in Smart IT) and clicks Share with Jira/CA Agile Central, the comment is added to the Jira/CA Agile Central issue.
• When a developer adds a comment to a Jira issue or user story, the comment is added to the corresponding Remedy ITSM change request or incident if the Viewable to all users option is selected in Jira.
• Any updates to fields in the vendor ticket are reflected in the corresponding Remedy ITSM incident fields. This behavior applies to the fields that are mapped in Step 6 of "Specify technology provider and field mapping" when Configuring-vendor-data.
• Status changes to a vendor ticket are reflected as an activity note on the Remedy ITSM incident or change request.

Activity notes display the vendor ticket numbers. Following are some examples of activity notes:

• JIRA ticket <ID> status changed to In Progress
• Note added from JIRA ticket <ID>

Where to go from here

To configure DevOps integration, see Configuring-BMC-Multi-Cloud-Service-Management.